Support emulation projects

WIP page, help wanted.

There are several ways to support or contribute to an emulation project (or similar projects such as Compatibility layers, Game engine recreations or simulators). Explained here are different ways you can get involved, even if you have low technical skill and no money.

Game testing & bug reporting

more text here... Create a GitHub account, most projects have instructions on how bug reports should be written, make sure you search to see if the issues is already brought up by another user, in that case just add your observation to that report.

Provide support for end users

Discord, IRC, forums

Write & promotion

Write blog posts, promote news, provide information, make videos on YouTube, explain change logs, etc.

Help with technical documentation

Emulators depend on technical emulation about the systems they emulate. Typically, there are dedicated communities (often includes people from emulation, homebrew and piracy scene) for these research and documentation tasks.

These research communities often uses Wikis which need to be maintained. Beginners can help by fixing typos or formatting. For some of these tasks, no coding skills are required. Advanced users and developers can contribute their own research, or participate in technical discussions.

Many of these communities also maintain their own tools which can be helpful for testing emulation or ROM dumping. These tools are often written in beginner-friendl programming languages (such as C# or Python) and can be stepping-stone for moving towards actual emulator development.

Communities

• XboxDev for original Xbox and SEGA Chihiro
• 3DBrew for 3DS

Learn how to code and help out

WIP

Donate money

Patreon

Several emulators have a Patreon. Here is a list

BountySource

BountySource let's you directly donate money to certain features or improvements you wish for

• Libretro
• Reicast

PayPal and other ways to donate

Some emulators have PayPal addresses and such on their homepages.

Big projects

MAME

It is not possible to donate directly to MAME, but several other projects that help MAME's development can be supported.

• The Dumping Union - Accepts donations from PayPal.

• Team Europe - Accepts donations from PayPal. See info here on how to donate.

• CAPS0ff - Has a Patreon.

Libretro / RetroArch

• Has a contribute page with wish lists for hardware and other info.
• Has a Patreon.
• Has a Bountysource where you can donate money directly to functions and improvements you wish to see.

ScummVM / ResidualVM

• ScummVM has a PayPal
• ScummVM Has a Bug tracker
• You can help translate ScummVM
• ScummVM has a devolper instruction on how to contribute code
• ResidualVM has a getting involved page and a Bug reporting page.

WINE

• Has a donate page where you find information on how to donate with Paypal and other ways to send money, you can also support them by buying merch. Another option is to buy CrossOver which is a commercialized, supported version of Wine from CodeWeavers. They contribute all of their work on Wine back to the Wine Project and make up for 2/3 of the Wine commits.